MODEL CAMP

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 November 1940, Page 8

MODEL CAMP

FEATURES OF WAIOURU QUARTERS FOR THOUSANDS OF MEN. MILES OF PAVED ROADS. ® Nearing completion at Waiouru is the most modern of New Zealand's military camps. Waiouru Camp will accommodate more than 7,000 men and could without difficulty take up to 10,000. Half a mile square, it is set in the lee of hills, with Mt. Ruapehu fifteen miles away.

Of necessity established in lonely country, the camp has been carefully designed and equipped, almost as a model township would be under a town planning scheme, and the troops will find no lack of comfort. There is a 100-bed hospital, a picture theatre is being erected to seat 850 and a Y.M.C.A. building, now almost finished, will be the largest of its kind in New Zealand. There will be a complete post and telegraph office and savings bank and, in course of construction, a special branch railway line, which will have a 1,000 feet platform to take a doubleengined full train. The station is only 200 yards from the camp. The roads will total 64 miles. They will be paved and 25 feet from kerb to kerb, a foot wider than the average main highway. Two roads in the camp will have double lanes, each of 25 feet, with a 30 feet central lane set apart as a “lung” to be planted with shrubs and grass.

The camp streets have already been named —Karamea, Moerangi, Kaikoura, Ruahine, Waitakere. Ruapehu, Maunganui, Ngaruhoe, Kaimanawa, Hikurangi. Tauhara, Aorangi, and Pirongia. Giant plants are already generating the electric power for the camp. The water supply comes from a specially constructed dam in the hills. There is modern sewerage for all purposes.

TENTS AND BUILDINGS. There are seven battalion areas. Each will take 192 tents, more if need be. or a grand total of 1344. The tents will take comfortably six men apiece. There is reserve land prepared for five more areas. The areas are in squares, each completely self-contained. The permanent buildings form the outsides of the squares; inside there is the area for the tents and inside that the parade ground protected by buildings and tents from the winds. The grounds, in common with the rest of the, camp, are to be tar-sealed. Thirty thousand trees have been planted in fourteen rows to form a shelter belt right round the camp. The messrooms (men’s) will each seat 450, and take up the two sides of the rectangle. At the built end of the rectangle is the kitchen block with the serveries, adjacent to the messrooms and connected by long slides. The camp is equipped with its own fire station with engine and accommodation for a brigade of six.

> HOT AND COLD WATER. For the first time in a New Zealand military camp all ranks will have hot and cold water at the ablution benches where the soldier has his shave and first wash of the day. There are special laundries and drying rooms in each area. The men’s shower block in each area will have 50 showers. Half of these will have pull attachments to be operated by the user, regulating the warmth of the water. The lavatory .accommodation also is modern, with more privacy than is usually given in military camps. Each of these shower, laundry and ablution blocks will have its own hot water supply. There are also huge ration stores and a 100 bed hospital block. RECREATION AREA. In the recreation area, 460 feet by 515, are situated the Y.M.C.A., Salvation Army and Church Army social rooms. The Catholic Church authorities will also erect a social room there. Everyman’s Hut is nearby. Here, also, the foundations of a theatre to seat 850 have been completed. If the men still feel energetic after a day’s drill or manoeuvres there will be no lack of sports’ areas. There is a formed football field and also acres of flat land readily adaptable for playing fields. To the south of the camp a full-sized rifle range will be provided, the land being already level for the purpose, and a machine-gun range of up to a mile will also be available. For training purposes, • there is at least 100,000 acres of land —plain, undulating country and steep hills.